I once knew this bent pharmacist, a 50-ish guy with kind eyes. He had a small pharmacy on the Kenton Road. He was still open once the ‘open’ sign had been flipped round. You had about 10 minutes after closing to buy illegal prescriptions. I would open the door with a fluttering heart and see him sat behind the counter flicking through an industry magazine. My hello was muffled by the thick scarf I was wearing. It was Spring but withdrawal had already started to refrigerate my bones. The briefest eye-contact and I heard him ask what I needed. He was good for the strong Codeine tablets and Valium. He never let you have any nice, old school Morphine though. That would have been pushing it.
He was forced to close the pharmacy to pay his way through a bitter divorce. It was quite a few years before I saw him again, his kind eyes now lost in valleys of wrinkles. He told me that his wife had walked into the back office and caught him with his trousers down and a junky girl on her knees. In the ensuing commotion the girl had run off with half his stock of Methadone and Morphine. His honesty had a beyond-caring quality to it that people tend to acquire after a certain age. My eye contact is better now and I sympathized, never sure if I was sympathizing with him or with myself for loosing a good source of high quality meds all those years ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment